


Your mind journeys, but I will hold you here

by thecruixe



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragon Age Fusion, Dreamsharing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:14:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23825893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecruixe/pseuds/thecruixe
Summary: While wandering the Fade, Fjord makes an unusual new friend.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay/Fjord
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	Your mind journeys, but I will hold you here

Fjord was reasonably sure he wasn’t a mage. 

He had waited anxiously for any sign of magic when he was young. The idea of the Gallows was just as terrifying as the tales of demons and abominations. But for once he was, thankfully and blessedly, normal. Magic showed itself in children, teenagers at the latest and the danger had passed for him. 

And yet, he had found things...happening. Nothing as dramatic as a fireball, not even anything he could point to and say without a doubt he had caused. Disoriented and stumbling enemies, stunned before he’d ever struck them. Coincidences. But not magic. He knew nothing about magic. 

Jester was a mage herself, but was nothing like he expected from the cautionary stories he’d heard growing up. She claimed she had never lived in a tower and he believed it. Jester used magic joyfully, naturally. She had no fear of it and fact didn’t seem to understand why she should. She’d sounded offended when Fjord had asked how she could have learned to control her magic and keep safe from demons, without a real teacher. She claimed she’d had the best teacher, better than any she could’ve found in a tower for sure, a spirit who could visit her in the real world, without even needing summoning. Her ideas about spirits were...well, strange to say the least. A spirit was a demon when you expected to see a demon, she said. Just meet spirits like any other person, become friends and they will help you. 

Maybe it was true. It was at least true that Jester was incredibly gifted. But Fjord had turned down her offer to meet her spirit friend. He wasn’t actually a mage, after all. 

—-

Fjord’s persistent Nightmare had a voice, deep and threatening. It spoke to him some nights, taunting him and ignoring his desperate questions. On other nights it fenced him in as he tried to explore or escape its domain. Every night his progress was followed by what seemed to be an endless sea of unblinking eyes. 

He had only tried once to defend himself from it. In response it flooded the dream with a rush of dark sea water that had dragged him down and suffocated him till he woke up gasping. He was too frightened to try fighting again after that. He wasn’t sure what would happen to him if he died in his dreams but he no longer felt sure he would wake up safe in the real world. 

In the waking world, the magic he had tried to call a coincidence was now a power he could actually use and control. It was frightening, but it was exciting as well. He was growing stronger and stronger as his friends adventured and fought their way across the land. He actually felt confident that he could help and keep up with the others. The Nightmare seemed a fair trade for the power, for now. 

\-- 

Beau and Jester didn’t agree with him. They’d told him there were times that no matter how they shook him and called to him, he wouldn’t wake. He tried to brush the incidents off, but he felt a chill go through him. He was obviously dreaming during the times when he couldn’t be woken, but once he was awake he could never recall it. 

He didn’t remember the dream he’d been having that had caused him to lash out and injure Beau one night, either. He only remembered waking, hearing her shout of pain. He watched, frozen and sick with guilt as Jester healed Beau in a panic. 

“I’m sorry” had been the only thing he could say. “I’m sorry”, “I don’t know”, “I can’t remember”, to every question until they were all frustrated and angry. Beau had been the one to put an end to it, finally. It was a relief, one he didn’t feel he deserved, when she finally said, “I believe him. He didn’t do that on purpose.” 

It was less of a relief when she continued, staring hard at him.

“You've been acting weird for weeks. Are you willing to admit this isn’t normal yet? We want to help you, but we can’t have you attacking us when we try to wake you up! How much worse is this going to get?” 

I’m sorry. 

I don’t know. 

He did not go back to sleep that night. It was his turn for watch anyway - that was why she’d been trying to wake him in the first place - and he found it easier to stay up till the dawn than wake the next person to relieve him. Easier to pick his memories apart, to question every moment of his horrible dreams and wonder helplessly how much more he could lose control.

—-

Fjord didn’t care for the Brecilian Forest. After a day of battling bears, werewolves, and violent, magical trees, he was more than ready to be done with it. But they hadn’t found a way through to the heart of the forest and needed rest badly. 

They’d found shelter in some overgrown ruins, which gave them the benefit of cover. They also gave Fjord a prickly feeling of being watched, however, by a headless statue of a woman standing guard. He’d offered to take first watch; a habit now that sleeping was such an ordeal. But he was more beaten and bloody than anyone else, and Beau had given him one look and demanded he rest immediately. 

He curled up against a broken column, as far away as he could be while staying in sight of the party. Despite his misgivings he found himself quickly asleep. 

As always he could feel the Nightmare's presence, its eyes just past the mists trained on him as he walked through the ghostly ruins. They weren’t ruins here though. The crumbling pillars were whole and shining, forming lovely, delicate arches above his head. There was something warm and alive about them. The deeper he entered the ruins the warmer he felt. His heart leapt as he realized that he didn’t feel the Nightmare anymore, that he might now be out of its reach for the first time in months. 

He followed a long corridor until it exited into a courtyard which was totally filled with a single, towering tree, boughs bent so heavily with brilliant pink flowers that they brushed the ground. The brightly colored petals fell constantly, lazily floated and passed through him as if he were the one made of mist. He approached it, cautious but curious. 

He startled as a shape on the other side of the tree moved. Demon he thought immediately, body tense and ready to flee or fight. He thought of Jester’s advice to him- a demon was only a demon when you expected one. And this… 

The creature had stood up, taller and taller but rather than the demon he expected Fjord found himself looking up at a slight, but nonetheless imposing qunari with pale silvery skin and horns. His long hair nearly matched the color of the blossoms falling around him. They had both frozen at the sight of one another, and then the giant had relaxed and smiled at him.

“Sorry,” he said, sitting back down with his long legs folded. “I wasn’t expecting any company here.” He gestured at the ground beside him saying, “Please, sit”. Fjord followed the movement with his eyes, seeing for the first time- or was it just now appearing? A teapot, merrily steaming with no apparent source of heat.

It was bizarre, and yet it was harmless and even charming in a way none of his dreams had ever been before. He sat across from the giant, beneath the canopy of the tree. 

“Where is this?” He asked. “I was dreaming. How did I get here?”

“You are still dreaming,” the giant said. “So am I, I suppose. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you how you got here since I don’t know where ‘here’ is for you.” 

Fjord frowned. “I didn’t think demons - spirits. Dreamt.” He said. It had only occurred to him as he said it that it might be rude to call him a demon to his face. But beyond a raising of his eyebrows he didn’t seem especially offended. 

“And I don’t understand, how do you not know where we are? Can’t you see the tree?” he continued. 

The giant tilted his head backward, gazing up into the canopy. “I can see it.” He confirmed. “But I’m sure it doesn’t really look like this. Unfortunately this has been the only way for me to visit the temples. 

You must really be there though. What’s it like?” He asked. 

A warning about demons entered Fjord’s mind. They desired nothing more than to see the world and would possess humans to do it. He looked suspiciously at the giant again, willing himself to see past the polite facade to the demon hiding beneath. But the creature’s shape didn’t change. He sat with his horned head tilted, open and guileless. 

“It’s old, and crumbling.” He finally answered. “And probably not structurally sound, but my companions insisted we sleep here anyway.” 

“That’s the risk you take to dream in these sorts of places, I think. At least, at first. I think when you’ve done it once you can probably get yourself back here again. It won’t be exactly the same, but I guess nowhere is really the same twice. I wish I could see it the way you can, though.” He said, wistfully. 

“Get back here again? How?” 

The creature looked at him curiously. “The same way you find anything in the Fade. You just need to have the right intentions.” 

And then Fjord was blinking up at Beau. Her hand was gripping his shoulder. He sat up, frowning and pushed her hand away gently. “Careful.” He warned. “Don’t want a repeat of last time.” 

“I'm fine.” she said, firmly. “ I’m not worried about me. Just... making sure. Better dreams tonight?”

“Yeah. I think so.” He said softly. “Hey, do we have time before we break camp? I wanna check something.”

—

The ruins didn’t match up perfectly to his dreams. The long hallway he had followed out into the courtyard seemed to be half missing, large sections sunk below ground. But they clambered over tree roots and worn stones long grown over with moss, following the path as he remembered it. As expected, there was a clearing at the end of it, surrounded on four sides by the remnants of walls. It was filled with tall grasses and rubble, but otherwise empty. Beau watched him as he walked slowly out into the center. 

“What are you looking for?” She called after him. 

“A tree.” He said, standing where it had stood the night before. There was no sign of it at all, not even a stump. 

“Plenty of those in the woods.” She said. And then, gently, “Come on.” He hesitated only a moment longer, before following her. Her hand rested on his back for one moment before she led the way back to their camp quietly. A heavy, hollow feeling hung over his heart. 

—

The feeling lingered. As they finished their business the dream stayed on his mind. Sleep didn’t come easily the next time they made camp. He tossed and turned, wondering over the advice of the creature in his dream, worrying that the Nightmare might not let him out of its sight again, questioning whether he was truly desperate enough to trust what was likely either a spirit or a demon just because he spoke to him kindly. 

Sleep brought him back to a familiar memory of childhood; a quiet night, the Waking Sea stretched out before him as he sat on the rocky beach. The full moon above him was a watchful eye, bright and intense like cold flame. He stood. The ever present mist at the edges of his perception grew dark and took the shape of large tentacles, which crept closer to him. His heart pounded and he walked away slowly along the shore, trying to look calm and unbothered. It stretched on and on as he walked, the eye watching and the landscape shifting between his memory and the Fade. He was going nowhere, and the Nightmare pursued him as slowly as it liked, savoring his fear. 

The tree hadn’t been real, he thought. The temple was a real place, though it hadn’t been a ruin in his dream. He could, apparently, visit it again now that he knew where it was, but how?

The dream-sea was beginning to rise, and though it was pointless he continued to walk, the motion helping his racing thoughts. It was impossible to make sense of this place, no matter how he tried. That was the nature of the Fade, he knew. Jester had explained it in her way, delighting in the chaos, and Caleb in his very technical terms. The problem was that Fjord didn’t seem to be much like either of them, not in how he did magic nor in how he experienced the Fade. 

How could he return in his dreams to a place that he was not physically in, to a part of it that hadn’t seemed to have existed at all? 

‘Spirit,’ he thought desperately. ‘Please hear me. Please help me.’

Around him the ground began shifting. Something was burrowing. Vines burst out of the ground and grew rapidly, became thick roots, twisting and twining around each other, rising higher and higher upward, branches reaching out, exploding into leaves and flowers. The flowering tree had torn its way through his nightmare, grown through it as surely as nature reclaiming a ruin. His heart soared. 

Behind him a cry of rage rang out. The light of the watchful moon-eye was snuffed out suddenly, along with the sound. Fjord collapsed gratefully against the roots of the tree, hiding himself among them. He turned over onto his back and lay among the roots, looking up into the canopy. “Thank you,” he whispered. His heart was still pounding as the tension left him, body sore and energy drained. He didn’t see anyone but he felt warmth and heard a woman’s gentle voice answer. You are safe here, Dreamer. 

From that night onward, Fjord felt safer in his dreams. Though they had left the forest behind, now that he knew how, he found himself most nights either beneath the tree or at least with its familiar shape on the horizon. 

He didn’t see the qunari again though, until they spent another night camped among a ruined section of the Imperial Highway. Fjord was sitting on the raised platform of the highway, the tree lingering an easy walk away. He saw the familiar lanky form making its way down the road and called out to him before he’d quite thought it through. 

He paused, hand still awkwardly up in the air as the creature looked toward him. It was too late to take it back. 

“Hello again” the giant called back, as he slouched toward him. “I’m glad to see you made it back.” 

“Did I?” Fjord asked. “I’m nowhere near the ruins, you know.” 

“I mean, neither am I.” said the giant. “But the Mother is watching over you, so you must have found your way.”

“The Mother?” 

He gestured toward the tree. 

“Oh.” Fjord said, at a loss for words. “Your …mother? Do spirits have mothers?” 

“You know, I don’t know! But she has children.” And then, as if what he’d said needed no further explanation he asked. “Can I join you?” 

\--- 

They kept finding each other, after that. During the day Fjord travelled along the highway in the real world, and in his dreams he waited there for his new companion. 

Fjord had learned more about him, travelling with him every night. He was called Caduceus, and the Mother he spoke to, the spirit which now protected Fjord’s dreams, had been his guardian and patron as long as he could remember. She wasn’t actually the tree, Caduceus informed him once, laughing and apologizing for giving him that impression. In fact, Fjord was only seeing the tree in all of his dreams because he had come to expect it when she was nearby. She caused it to appear for his comfort and nothing more. 

She was everything natural, Caduceus claimed. The sea, the sky, the land, and all the beasts which lived Among them. Her domain was massive, and one couldn’t ever truly be separate from it, though being in certain temples made connecting with her easier. 

“I suppose I got lucky, that night.” Fjord mused. Caduceus smiled at him. 

“Or she was guiding you, even then.” 

That was a lot to think about. Years worth of things in fact, that he didn’t really want to think about. He cleared his throat instead, feeling awkward. “So why were you there, then?” he asked. 

Caduceus glanced at him from the corner of his eye, but politely allowed him to drop it. 

“I've been searching for something at the temples. Memories. Answers. Some people too, I guess. You wouldn’t happen to have seen anyone who looked a bit like me at those temples?” he asked. 

“I‘ve never really seen anyone like you.” Fjord said, and then looked away, tripping over his words as he rushed to add- “But don’t talk to anyone in dreams! Or if I do they don’t talk back. Not the way you do.” 

“No” Caduceus agreed, “Spirits rarely do more than playing the parts you expect.” 

“But not you?” He asked, a smile creeping into his tone. 

“Not me. This is my dream too, you know.” 

— 

Caduceus was always curious about where Fjord was, always prodding him to explain what the places they visited were, asking him to describe what he was seeing until the dream had molded itself to fit his words and they could explore it properly together. He was fascinated by the world and delighted in the scenery Fjord shaped to show him. The nervousness he had felt about being possessed was all but gone now. If Caduceus were a demon intending to steal his body to see the world, he was going about it in the least convenient way possible. 

“You travel a great deal.” Caduceus remarked, as they lay beneath the clear blue sky in a field of flowers that Fjord had painstakingly detailed for Caduceus’ amusement. He didn’t admit that he’d fudged the details somewhat - it was a rainy, cold day, as it nearly always was, and the flowers weren’t nearly so numerous. But Caduceus so dearly wanted to see these things for himself, and Fjord thought that he ought to at least see them at their best.

He looked over at him, laying among the blooms gently swaying in a breeze far milder than anything he’d felt in all his time in Ferelden. His hair was spread out around his head, fingers laced together over his chest. His posture seemed relaxed, but he was frowning. “You’re never in the same place twice. You always have new things to tell me about.” 

“Well, we’re always on the move. We’ve been crossing the country on foot.” Fjord replied “And we’ve got Darkspawn to worry about. Not to mention bandits and I guess, technically, there’s still a bounty on my friend.” 

Caduceus’ frown deepened. “Bounty?” He repeated. 

“The Grey Wardens are kind of public enemy number one right now. People still don’t really believe there’s a Blight yet, so they don’t seem to care that we’re the only ones actually trying to stop it.” 

Caduceus bolted upright suddenly. “Stop it?” He said incredulously. “You know how to stop it?” 

Fjord raised himself up as well, leaning on one arm. Caduceus’ eyes were bright and his expression was intense, like he’d never seen it. 

“Not me, exactly.” He said. “My friend, the Grey Warden. This is her quest. I’m just...well, I guess I’m just trying to help.” 

“The Blight.” Caduceus said, trailing off and gazing down over the field. “Can I show you something? Do you mind?”

“Of course.” 

Caduceus stood, offering a hand to pull Fjord to his feet as well. The field of flowers had become a marshy forest around them. He followed silently as Caduceus led him by the hand to a broken wall. Beyond it the forest stretched on, but it was immediately clear how different it was from the one they stood in. The earth seemed burnt and barren, only gnarled trees for miles, surrounded by a thick mist which hung heavy and poisonous. 

“The Blight has been spreading for more than a hundred years” Caduceus said sadly. “The creatures that live here have died or been...changed.Twisted and poisoned. The last Blight has long been past but it still spreads slowly. My family has all left looking for a way to preserve our temple.

“If you know how to stop it, or if your friend knows…”

“I’m not sure that she does.” Fjord said carefully, gazing out over the ruined lands.

“But if there’s a chance. I was supposed to wait here for them, but no one has returned. This is the first bit of hope I’ve had in...a long time. If you need anything, I can help you in return.”

Fjord didn’t know how to say that Caduceus had already helped him more than he could ever express, had probably saved his life without ever realizing it. He’d turned his dreams into a refuge, driven his fear of the Fade away and in turn, given him the strength to drive the Nightmare that had been feeding on that fear away. 

He squeezed Caduceus’ hand.

“What do you need me to do?”

—

Caduceus had asked him to come to another temple. His instructions weren’t very helpful, and his understanding of geography was seriously lacking, but he and Fjord had managed to puzzle out the approximate area. He was apologetic, but his excitement could hardly be concealed. He kept breaking into smiles. And Fjord couldn’t really stay annoyed when Caduceus’ face lit up that way. 

Fjord found it easier than he’d expected to ask his friends for this detour. He’d struggled to even admit he was struggling until it had burst out of him in a way even he couldn’t ignore. But for Caduceus, it was simple, steering the party well out of their way, over frigid mountains and into an impossibly dense forest, without even trying to claim it would help the ultimate goal of ending the Blight. And even more simple was the way his friends trusted him, agreed to his request with the barest explanation, borrowed from Caduceus: “I think my dreams are leading me there.”

—-

He had seen from his dreams that the temple stood surrounded by a Blighted forest but he hadn’t really been prepared. It was massive, dense and dark and beyond the twisted blight creatures they saw no sign of life. The whole group traveled in solemn silence. Doubt entered Fjord’s mind and lingered. Nothing could live in this place. 

When they finally found it, the Temple was an oasis. 

It was far better preserved than most ancient buildings they had entered along their journey, looking more like the memories of temples from Fjord’s dreams. It showed obvious signs of age, but also upkeep. The wall separating it from the forest was broken in places, and the temple had no windows, but the garden was clearly loved. A wild, beautiful field of unusual flowers grew up among the tall trees which filled the entire space, vibrant, surrounded by all this death. 

And tending to the garden was a familiar figure. Fjord’s breath caught. 

Caduceus looked over his shoulder and saw them. His eyes widened and he stood up so quickly his horns caught on a branch, but he hardly seemed to notice it as he walked to Fjord, hesitantly and then faster, hands reaching out for him. He was already moving too, closing the gap between them, hands tangling together soon as they met. 

“It’s you.” He said, stupid, stunned. 

He knew Caduceus well, knew his face, but he couldn’t stop searching and seeing new things as he drank in the sight of him. He was smiling, eyes shining with tears. He was sure his were the same but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. The sun filtered down through the trees, dappling shadows and light more intense than could exist in any dream that danced and played off his skin, his hair, his long eyelashes. He had always been strange, and beautiful, but now.

Real. He was real. 

“I was afraid you wouldn’t be here.” Fjord said, finally, letting his gaze drop, his head fall so close to resting on Caduceus’ shoulder. 

“Where else would I be?” He raised their joined hands, held Fjord’s against his cheek, warm and soft. 

I’m here.” He said, gently. 

“We’re here.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've played Dragon Age so much that the first thing to come to mind for the Fjorclay Week prompt "Dreams" was of course something to do with the Fade. Title is from the translation of the song "Mir Da'len Somniar' from the art book!


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